


April Showers

by dontrush



Category: Homestuck, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Light Horror, Podfic & Podficced Works, Valestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontrush/pseuds/dontrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Night Vale experiences a string of bizarre meteor strikes as local resident John Egbert celebrates his thirteenth birthday. Angels bowl. Cities fall. Hope survives. </p><p>((Note: Fic is completely accessible to those unfamiliar with Homestuck, though less so for those unfamiliar with Welcome to Night Vale, as there are spoilers through Episode 25.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	April Showers

**Author's Note:**

> AVAILABLE AS A PODFIC. Download it [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?jvfnku4k707ynfz) to get the full (~27 minute) WTNV experience: complete with ambient music and an actual weather section! Consume this fic the way it was meant to be consumed: with your eardrums. 
> 
> Or not. The unfeeling void shall one day consume us all no matter which option you choose.

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes only a child to raze a village. Welcome...to Night Vale.

I would like to start off this broadcast by wishing a very happy birthday to Night Vale resident John Egbert, who has just turned 13. He was reportedly not named until today, even though those who know him believed to have known his name all along. There are no signs of birthday decorations on the boy’s house, the only thing out of the ordinary being that the little red arm-swingy-dealy thing or whatever it is called on the mailbox is flipped up. There is no also birth certificate for the child in the town records. Neighbors _did_ report the scent of cake emanating from the Egbert household, but they quickly added that the scent of cake _always_ emanates from the Egbert household. In fact, the only evidence suggesting the boy’s birthday is today was an application for the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex “Kids’ Compulsory Birthday Fun Club,” which not only provides your son or daughter a yearly coupon for a free shoe rental, but also conscripts him or her into a highly regulated militia in the event that a children’s crusade against the underground city becomes necessary. 

This brings me to the following brief announcement: the station would like to remind everyone that the Kids’ Compulsory Birthday Fun Club is fun for the whole family and mandatory for all children ages 4-12. Remember their motto: “Children are never too young to bowl, operate automatic weaponry, or give their lives defending our glorious town.” Register early to receive 20 free arcade tokens and consideration for an officer position. 

And now, the news. Old woman Josie out near the car lot has taken her angel friends out bowling today using the money she received auctioning off objects they had touched. According to Teddy Williams, one of the angels is several frames into what may turn out to be a perfect game. This would be a historic event for Night Vale, marking the first perfect game ever bowled in the town by a non-city council member. Come on down to the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex to cheer on the angel going for 300. Teddy Williams is taking bets, with the current odds at 4:13. It is the black angel, if that sweetens the pot for anyone.

Reports coming in indicate that a meteor has struck Night Vale. The small, baseball sized rock fell from the void early this afternoon. This meteor would be the first to strike the city since exactly thirteen years ago, when a much larger meteor tragically struck down a quaint family joke shop, which has since been replaced by a Subway. Today’s meteor has luckily only hit the Night Vale Public Library and has thankfully injured one of its librarians.

John Peters—you know, the farmer—has harvested his crop of imaginary corn and will be sending some off to the green market co-op shortly. When making the rounds on his farm, however, he came across a surprising sight. As he walked his imaginary corn rows he discovered a plant growing in the barren desert sand. A ripe pumpkin vine had grown right where he had planted his imaginary corn seeds so many months ago. “Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are,” he said, adding, “I had never expected to reap a corporeal harvest.” He has yet to comment on whether the pumpkin will be available for sale at any point in the future, or whether he intends to continue planting pumpkins in future seasons. 

More meteors strike Night Vale. What was treated as a freak occurrence now appears to have been only the first in a shower of rocks falling out of the void onto our unsuspecting town. Teddy Williams reports that one of them, this one coincidentally the size of a bowling ball, crashed through the roof of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Miraculously, the meteor made direct impact on the pin retrieval area of lane 5, decimating the insidious underground city. This is a glorious day for Night Vale and its residents, who can rest easy with the knowledge that the fiends who killed the apache tracker have been brought to justice, with the exception of those who were out on raids and reconnaissance, which Teddy Williams estimates to be “hundreds of them, if not thousands.” The angel in the middle of what would have been a legendary perfect game abruptly quit after the meteor hit during the last frame. Onlookers report he and the other angels rushed away from the scene, muttering something about “ushering in the end.” Teddy Williams plans to pay to repair the roof by spending some of the money he earned from bookmaking, and by declaring all coupons earned through the Kids’ Compulsory Birthday Fun Club to be null and void. Participation will remain compulsory nonetheless.

And now, Traffic. The streets are empty. Wind skims the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note is produced. It's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune. This has been Traffic.

We turn now to the world of business. Local cereal manufacturer Flaky-O’s has been bought out by the Betty Crocker Corporation. The multinational snack conglomerate has apparently managed to contact the Flaky-O’s board of directors, who had been taken to the abandoned mine shaft outside of town following their risky mass marketing ploy involving that enormous, mind-broadcasting pyramid that so swept up our little town. At the press conference announcing the news, a representative for Crockercorp was asked how the company intends to manufacture and sell its products in Night Vale given the ban on wheat and wheat byproducts still in effect. The representative gave the following official statement: “OBEY. CEASE REPRODUCTION. SUBMIT. CONSUME. EMBRACE YOUR CULLING. CONFORM TO SOCIAL ORDER. STAY ASLEEP. DIE.” The eight-foot-tall robotic drones to either side of the representative then gave the crowd a menacing glare before escorting her from the premises and taking one of the reporters hostage. Well, listeners, I for one welcome Crockercorp and wish it the best in our quaint desert town. 

A brief correction on the meteor incident. We previously stated that the meteors, those slabs of space rock raining havoc on our precious Night Vale, had fallen from the void. According to recent scientific inquiry, however, that statement may not be fully accurate. Local scientists have been watching the sky since the first meteor strike and initially found no additional meteors making their way toward our fair city. Finally, one of them saw a meteor appear from out of nowhere, but not the regular, unfeeling-void-of-space type of nowhere from which that sort of thing typically appears. Instead, the meteor was said to appear from an enormous green spirograph in a constant state of fluxing undulation. The portal’s design was both elegant in its simplicity and mesmerizing in its complexity, a perfect image of radial symmetry. It was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Similar sights were confirmed as spawning all subsequent meteors. Now, I don’t know about you, listeners, but I think that spirograph sounds like a wonderful screensaver. 

We have received an update on the birthday boy: has domestic violence reared its ugly head in Night Vale? So suspect neighbors of the recently named John Egbert. Citizens of Desert Creek claim they heard the sounds of a struggle in the Egbert household. Other signs of foul play include: cake, a toilet, and handcuffs splayed on the front lawn; a hovering, disjointed glyph resembling a green house moving in and out of the residence; and the recent, instantaneous addition of about 100 square feet of floor space onto the two-story home. A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Secret Police assured concerned citizens that the boy’s father, a well-dressed man with no eyes or mouth, has committed no acts of violence. He added that an investigation is pending on the reports of the boy’s father baking cakes in direct violation of the citywide ban on wheat and wheat byproducts. When our intern Andrew reached Mr. Egbert for comment, the man said nothing and produced a plain business card which read, “If you are reading this, then you have survived your first job as an intern for the radio station. Your daring investigative journalism has surely brought you one step closer to a safer, paid position. I am so, so proud of you.” On his way back to the studio, intern Andrew was hit on the head by a falling meteor and died instantly. Our sympathies go out to his family.

We have multiple reports coming in now that a large rock is stuck in the sky. What may have been a meteor appears to have stopped falling towards the ground and is now teleporting randomly through the sky at a fixed height. Scientists speculate that a meteor became lodged in the town’s invisible Clock Tower, which is known to constantly teleport. While on the subject of the meteors, I would like to address an anonymous caller _named Steve Carlsberg_ , who recently held up the station’s phone line leaving a long detailed theory about the meteors being sent by the government to kill undesirable citizens. Now you listen here, Steve Carlsberg, the government has at its disposal a host of sanctioned, time-tested methods of controlling undesirables: disease, reeducation, lightning strikes, old-fashioned assassination, new-wave assassination, ultimate Jai alai, the list goes on. Why would they attempt something as risky as summoning meteors through black magicks with so many viable alternatives. And besides, Steve Carlsberg, one of those meteors landed _in the dog park_. Do you really think our City Council would be so callous as to put our city at that kind of a risk? Honestly, it’s like you aren’t even aware of the world around you. Let’s go to a word from our sponsors. 

You see them in the space between worlds, high above existence, basking in a green sun that outweighs universes. They are inscrutable masses of teeth and tendrils and sinew weighed down by eons. You try to look away, but this only draws them closer; blocking them from your sight gives them access to your mind. You can almost feel those aged tentacles smoothing over lobe and cortex, grasping at last your soul. You dig your nails into your skin as a vision reveals itself through eyes shut more tightly than ever before. It is an eternal slaughter, black blood everywhere. It is an entire afterlife obliterated in a Technicolor frenzy of pure wrath. It is a cry for help.

GameBro Magazine.

A call has come in from Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town. He reports that meteors have struck the Whispering Forest, which is now on fire. The burning complex organic network was said to release a shuddering howl like the rending of souls. The flames are violet and the ashes are white. Our hearts go out to all those who were previously incorporated into the collective consciousness that was the Whispering Forest, including intern Richard. He and his brethren of the trees are now assumed to be not only dead, but completely obliterated from this and all planes of existence. Simone Rigaudeau from the Earth Sciences building of Night Vale Community College was reached for a comment on the horrific demise of our town’s most beloved complex organic network of intertwining roots, branches, and souls. Her only words were, “Everyone is one nothing. No one is one anything. Nothing is one. All is none.” Never have truer words been spoken by a transient who, need I remind you, has no scientific background whatsoever.

We have an update on the pumpkin story and that is: What pumpkin story? You are fairly certain there is not, nor has there ever been, a pumpkin story. Pumpkin story, honestly, where would you even get such a crazy idea? It certainly wasn’t from earlier in this very broadcast, and if it was, it certainly would not have been about John Peters—you know, the farmer—finding a pumpkin in his imaginary corn field. And if there _were_ an update, it certainly would not be about John Peters grafting the pumpkin to himself so he could have one hideous arm. He already has arms, stupid! You are quite sure there is no pumpkin story and there never will be. And now, dear listeners...

[The weather.](http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/squiddle-song)

Shocking, terrible news, listeners: the largest meteor yet in the recent and unexpected shower has made direct impact on the spot of local birthday boy John Egbert’s house, taking with it the majority of the Desert Creek neighborhood. Early estimates of the death toll are only in the dozens, as many Desert Creek residents had left their homes to watch the angels bowl, but nearly every house in the neighborhood has been leveled. There are two known exceptions. The first is that one house that by all accounts appeared to have been there, but did not, scientifically speaking anyway, exist. Call it semantics if you wish, but as it did not exist in the first place, it logically could not have been destroyed, though it does not still appear to be there. In its place is a pile of rubble that appears to exist, like it’s just right there when you look at it, and it’s situated between two identical piles of rubble, so it makes more sense for it to exist than not.

The second exception, dear listeners, was the Egbert household itself. All neighbors who were present to witness its demise were unfortunately killed, but people aboard a nearby helicopter saw the whole thing. The blue helicopter was there carrying members of the Sheriff’s Secret Police sent to punish Mr. Egbert for blithely and repeatedly violating the ban on wheat and wheat byproducts by baking cakes. One of the officers told us that they saw John Egbert standing on the house’s balcony with a blue apple just prior to impact. When he took a bite of the apple, the entire house and the surrounding land disappeared. Wherever John and his dad are now, it is not likely to be this dimension as we know it. So, the Sheriff’s Secret Police have counted the mission to eliminate Mr. Egbert as a success, breaking its record-long streak of failures.

Listeners, our show must draw to a close, but the storm of meteors outside rages on. We have survived worse, Night Vale, but that is no reason not to be cautious. Stay indoors if at all possible. If you must go outside, be sure to carry an umbrella. Stay tuned for an uninterrupted broadcast of the ten hour operatic adaptation of the popular children’s cartoon, “Squiddles!” And remember; don't look up at the sky. What you see can only disappoint you. Good night, Night Vale. 

Good night.

**Author's Note:**

> April Showers is a Welcome to Night Vale fanfiction. It was written by AO3 user dontrush. The voice of April Showers was also AO3 user dontrush, who, I have to say, really phoned it in on this one. Original music by Disparition and multiple homestuck musicians. All of it can be downloaded at disparition.info and homestuck.bandcamp.com respectively. Today’s weather was “Squiddle Song” by Maya Kern. Find out more at isthatwhatyoumint.tumblr.com. Check out commonplacebooks.com for more information on the official WTNV release. Today’s proverb is: April showers bring May flowers. May flowers bring bees. Lots of bees. They’ve taken control of our government. Please send help.


End file.
